


Hope So Pale in Sky So Dark

by Ramzes



Series: Night So Dark and Star So Pale [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 19:11:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12800481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramzes/pseuds/Ramzes
Summary: He had vowed to heal her, not stand by as she clawed her way to it on her own, like she had after the horror of Rhaenys’ birth.





	Hope So Pale in Sky So Dark

The lullaby was the first  thing that drove Arthur to peek in. He could tell immediately that the voice was not Elia’s but the melody and the words were something he knew by heart. Of course he did. For all Elia’s efforts to seek balance between loyalists and rebels, the nursery was no place for such compromises. The only Kingsguard allowed to guard her children unsupervised by another member of their brotherhood were Arthur and young Mors; the only attendants the children had were Dornish ones and Queen Rhaella was the only non-Dornish woman allowed to see them in Elia’s absence. _Little Sunspear_ , the Red Keep had already dubbed the nursery with certain resentment. No, surprised, Arthur was not. “Sleep, my sweet boy, the night is clear; close your eyes, dear one, Mama is here…” The woman sang the simple verses on and by the third one, Arthur had forgotten to ask who she was. It did not matter – the woman he was seeing with his mind’s eye was his own mother, her voice mingling with the tune of the Torrentine. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine he was home, so far away from the meeting of the Kingsguard that he was returning from.

 When the woman fell silent, his longing grew and his curiosity rose again because he knew her. He simply could not say who she was. He pushed the door open and she spun around, Aegon still in her arms but her hand flying to her gown. In two steps, Arthur was next to her, wrenching the dagger from her fingers. In truth, she looked more enraged that he dared accost her than scared because of her offence. He took the blade and gave it a casual look. “You’re carrying a blade in the King’s presence,” he said softly.

 “Oh don’t pretend to be all insulted!” the Lady of Blackmont retaliated. “With your record of guarding King Aegon, which consisted mainly of standing duty in front of the chamber his father fucked the Stark girl in, you really aren’t the one to talk.”

 He didn’t rise to the bait. “Does Elia know?”

 Larra huffed. “Of course she does,” she snapped. “After the children almost died last time, do you think she minds having steel close to them and someone able to wield it just in case?”

 He stared at her horrified, things suddenly making sense, and one that he did not like. Elia would never be unafraid for her children’s safety again… and he was not included in her plans. Seven hells, he was not even included in the circle of the ones who knew about them!

 The child in Larra’s arms stirred and they both held their breath. Fortunately, he did not wake up and after a while, Larra left him on the carpet. Arthur headed for the door, when her question made him stop dead in his tracks. “Do the two of you not talk at all? It’s just a bed and nothing else?”

 He spun around. “Be quieter!” he hissed but she was so close to him that this was the only reason for him being able to hear her at all. No one could overhear. “Did Elia tell you?”

 Larra shrugged which could mean yes or not. “Elia, I can understand,” she said. “But you? I watched you for years, Arthur. I watch you now. I don’t get you. Why do you agree to such a relationship when it doesn’t give you any of the things that you want?”

 Oh but it did. Vengeful bedding was still better than this unnatural state of celibacy that his vows had inflicted on him; with Elia next to him, he could pretend that there was closeness, that he was not a ghost rejected by the world at large and her in particular, expecially when the candles died out and she was too tired or just overwhelmed to remember that it was all vengeance to her. How could a woman like this one understand? Larra had always had someone. By the Seven, Arthur had seen her and Arel kissing behind closed doors quite often before they were both wed to other people. Her elderly husband had adored her and she had not stayed alone for too long after his death either. Cold beds were for those who kept their vows, even if it killed them, and Larra Blackmont did not belong to this category.

The dagger was still squeezed in his hand, the rubies glistening like blood and the pearls, like tears. What a ridiculous women’s weapon! But it was sharp and well-balanced; in the right hands, it could kill almost as certainly as Dawn.

 “I do not wish to give offence, my lady,” Arthur said formally. “But I find it hard to believe in this sudden concern about me, forgive me.”

 “I am not concerned about you at all,” Larra snapped. “My concern is about Elia and Arel and for some reason, they both still retain some measure of affection for you that you don’t deserve at all if you ask me. I don’t think Elia’s vengeance will make her a happy woman and I know for sure that your misery doesn’t make him happy either. The sooner you sort this out, the sooner I see them more cheerful.”

 It was almost touching, only Arthur had no capacity to be touched right now – his stupid, selfish heart was too busy rejoicing.

 “I suspect that you have no idea what you’re doing,” Larra went on, as quiet and insistent as he had rarely seen her – and she was one of the women he had known best once. A neighbour’s daughter. “You had the flair one but you’ve spent too many years as a Kingsguard – I suppose you ‘ve had no experience with women since you took the white?”

 Arthur did not reply. He hoped he had not blushed.

 “So  I thought. It’s no wonder you’ve been doing it all wrong.”

 “I?” he protested, anger rising quick and fierce. “It started just for revenge – and this is how it’s kept going. Not by any wish of mine, I might add. Or has your dear friend failed to mention this detail?”

 “I know, I know it started out as a revenge – but what did you do to change it? You kept going to her bed like a well-trained hound – is this how you want to be perceived?”

 His silence seemed to be an answer in itself because she gaped. “I see,” she finally said. “You hope to melt her there? In bed? This is why you won’t shun her desires. It isn’t even that she orders you. You think bed can change things.”

 “Can’t it?” he asked. After all, if someone was knowledgeable about such matters, it would be the woman who had never suffered in a cold bed. “It changed things for Arel, after all. Even after you got the office that he was stripped of.”

 She recoiled but recovered almost immediately. “Is this the moment I’m supposed to slap you?” she asked, quite calmly, given their circumstances.

 “I don’t know. Is it?”

 “I’ll pass for now,” Larra replied, her narrowed eyes showing that she would not renounce the right all over. “Bed had little to do with it for me and Arel. He was mine before he became hers, and he’s mine now. But for us, shared bed was a matter of closeness, not the other way round. If you keep going like this, you might succeed with Elia in a year or something.”

 A year!

 “Well, what can I do?” he asked. “She doesn’t want to hear my apologies.”

 “Give them anyway. And then again and again, every night and every day.”

 This was easy enough for her to say!  “She doesn’t trust me. She didn’t even tell me you were the new Voice of Sunspear… or how afraid she was for the children.”

 Larra shrugged this off. “Well, of course she didn’t! Why should she share such things with an instrument? After all, that’s what you’ve agreed to be for her, isn’t it? A weapon.”

 Without even realizing it, she had dealt a crushing blow. A weapon. That was what he had been since he had donned the white cloak. A sword guarding Aerys as he did unimaginable things to his kind queen. A dishonourable knight who had fallen, so Rhaegar could win the day, although he had believed it was for impressing the lords and not a northern girl, the fool that he was. A shield between Rhaegar and everyone who might try and infringe on his secluded sanctuary. And finally, a wall between Lyanna Stark and her insane desire to kill herself by crossing the Seven Kingdoms in the middle of a war. Not that she had not died at the end anyway. And now, he was a weapon again. A weapon of Elia’s revenge on a dead man and Arthur himself – and although he could say that she was mellowing, it was not happening fast enough. He had vowed to heal her, not stand by as she clawed her way to it on her own, like she had after the horror of Rhaenys’ birth.

 “Why didn’t you tell me you were so scared about the children?” he asked later when Elia was giving all indications that she wanted him to rise, dress, and leave.

 She looked at him, startled. For a moment, he thought that he had seen surprised delight in her eyes before she looked away.

 “Is this because you don’t trust _me_ with your heart?” he asked.

 Elia slowly shook her head. “No,” she said, as if despite her cold calculations, she had been waiting forever to hear him ask. “It was because I don’t _like_ it that I don’t trust you with my heart.”

 He felt suddenly lighter, a solid bit of the weight pressing down upon him disappearing all of a sudden. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you don’t want to hear it but I do regret my part in all of this.”

 She wetted her suddenly dry lips and looked down, her hair hiding her face from view. Arthur hesitated and pushed a few locks behind her ear. “What’s this? Tears? Elia?”

 “He never told me that he regretted it,” she murmured. “He only regretted that he _had_ to do this. That was what he said.”

 The things that the Prince had told Lady Lyanna had been quite different! Arthur wondered which woman he had lied to. Or perhaps he had been telling the truth to both? Especially now, faced with Elia’s so rare tears, he could find no answer at all. “May I stay?” he asked.

 She was silent but when he started to remove his hand from her hair, she covered it with her own and held it in place.

 

  **The End**

 

 


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